


Solace on Sakaar

by Zaniida



Series: Five Moments of Loki [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Additional Tags to Be Added, Coercion Is Inherently Non-Con, F/M, FMI, FMNI, Five Moments of (Nonsexual) Intimacy, Frank Language Regarding Sex, Friends With Benefits, Homesickness, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki's a bit conditioned by this point, Manipulation, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Public Nudity, Sakaar (Marvel), Sex Is Not the Focus Here, The Grandmaster's Orgies, but at least he found a friend, disorientation, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:53:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22113643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/pseuds/Zaniida
Summary: He's living in the trash heap of the universe under the thumb of a madman, and he's never going to see his home or family again because everybody's dead and he can't even walk between realms.But perhaps he's found a friend in the one person left alive who might possibly share a key portion of his perspective.Prequel toUnforeseen Friendship; this should eventually be a trilogy.
Relationships: Brunnhilde | Valkyrie & Loki (Marvel), Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Loki (Marvel)
Series: Five Moments of Loki [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1362988
Comments: 19
Kudos: 57





	1. Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [apyewackety](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apyewackety/gifts), [Lovely1234](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lovely1234/gifts).
  * Inspired by [That Old Familiar Thing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15649389) by [scioscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Ugh, I tried to get this in before midnight, but it's like 2:30 a.m. already (what with all the edits and formatting). But I haven't gone to sleep yet, and the rest of the household isn't up yet, so I'm still counting it as "tonight." Hence I'm changing the posted-by date_.
> 
>  **Content Warnings in End Note** , though I'd like to specifically point out that Coercion and Dubious Consent don't overlap very much, if ever. If you're afraid of Severe Consequences for refusing, then your consent isn't freely given; there's nothing dubious about that. Trysts with the Grandmaster (or the Grandmaster pushing you to amuse him by having sex with other people so he can watch) are coercive by nature, unless the author takes the time to establish why this isn't the case (in their setup), and I've gone a bit deeper than that for this piece.
> 
> Anyway! I've planned this piece for a while, as I wanted to extend [Unforeseen Friendship](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18847450/chapters/44730058) out to a trilogy of FMI fics. And I kinda wanted to get this one started before I finished up that fic. But it's Gift Fic time, so I had to decide who might be likely to enjoy this.
> 
>  **apyewackety** , I was pretty sure about you, although I don't think this will go as dark as you might appreciate. I've got another piece in the works that I think you'll like more, but it's taking a bit to get it together so I wanted to make sure you got something; I've much enjoyed your comments and our exchanges, and of course your art.
> 
>  **Lovely1234** , I hope you find these "cuddles" enjoyable, even if this Loki's not quite as broken as the Loki of DFD. Your comments on _Tremble and Serve_ amused me, and you're one of the names I recognize now, so I wanted to include you.
> 
>  **Eschatona** , I know we haven't exchanged that many comments, but I appreciated your enthusiasm over my ideas (DFD chapter 13), and it seemed like a moderate amount of Loki whump with some feels would be enjoyable for you.
> 
> As the tags say, this fic isn't sex-focused, although sex will be included. Loki & the Valkyrie get into a "friends with benefits" kind of relationship, so it's not romantic or aiming for any greater intimacy. Given that the & tag indicates a relationship with no sexual or romantic component, I think most fics should be marked with slash _or_ &, [not both](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/577825), but this is a friendship that happens to have a bit of stress relief on the side, so I think the double tag fits it better.
> 
> The "frank language" tag refers to the fact that Loki's inner narration repeatedly mentions body parts (most notably "cock") and the act of being fucked (as opposed to having sex, making love, enjoying each other's bodies -- it's a very specific word choice). I wouldn't say "this fic has a lot of swearing" but more "this fic uses a lot of words that are typically used as swear words." Which is a fine distinction. And that's probably going to be _mostly_ in the first chapter here; it seems appropriate to the situation, and especially to Loki's drug-addled mind.

His throat is sore; that’s the first piece of sensory data that finally makes it through the fog.

His head is pounding to the music; his back and knees are _screaming_ at him; his skin feels flushed and raw, entirely too hot beneath the naked flesh pressed against him.

The backs of his legs feel wet, and his ass is sore, which makes it easier to realize that he’s just coming down off the Grandmaster’s concoctions for the night, slowly becoming aware of the room again, the people around him, the fact that he’s still on hands and knees and the rocking motion is from someone—no, at least _two_ someones—currently making use of his body.

He is, after all, the prettiest face in the Grandmaster’s favor, and the Grandmaster likes to pass him around like candy… usually in the grip of substances that make him responsive and pliant and take away his ability—even his _desire_ —to resist any request asked of him.

The vulnerability terrifies him, but the Grandmaster’s orgies are mandatory, and not the sort of event where you get to say ‘no more,’ not even with a ‘please’ attached. Not if you want to _stay_ in his favor, and Loki’s long-term survival plans hinge on that detail—so as much as he’d like to stop, to rest, he pushes that desire to the side and tries to reclaim a smile, act like he’s enjoying himself.

Pain, after all, is an old friend, since long before he wound up in Sakaar; he can deal with pain. Being exhausted, wet, hungry, miserable, covered in disgusting substances, and feeling on the edge of vomit, well… he’s had his share of that, as well. Tavern-hopping with Thor, or trying to match him in the arena until they were both bruised head to heel; a few magical mishaps over the centuries, and, of course, all manner of ridiculously memorable adventures throughout the Nine Realms.

 _Norns_ , he’s so far from the Nine. Doesn’t know how to get back to them; isn’t sure what he’d find if he did.

Hela’s probably razed Asgard to dust by now.

(He tries not to think about what she might’ve done to Thor.)

Forever unable to go home… the thought rouses equally the impulse to break down and sob or to grin until they think him mad. He pushes it all away, and focuses on breathing around the flesh in his mouth. And then, as the hands tighten in his hair, on swallowing without choking.

When the act is over, he’s shoved away, falling hard to the floor with a twin feeling of rejection and relief. Above him, lights swirl across the ceiling; he blinks up at them through bleary eyes, his mouth gooey and much too dry. He hasn’t the energy to right himself, but something is starting to feel… _off_ , and he can’t marshal his thoughts enough to figure out exactly _what_. Except that it’s making his skin crawl.

As the Grandmaster’s laughter (still not tired) bubbles up from probably the other side of the room, Loki sees dark leather enter his field of vision, and steels himself for yet another round of whatever anyone wants of him.

He pushes down thoughts of what he wants for himself. That will come, in time. If he can last.

“Hey, Grandmaster, your toy looks a bit broken.” It’s a female voice, but beyond that, he can’t place it. Not someone he knows. Doesn’t have a cock… probably.

“Oh, he’s just getting used to the Lyria extract. Hours to go. Leave him alone for a bit and see how much he writhes!”

“Actually,” the voice says thoughtfully, “I think I’ll take him for a test drive. Bring him back in the morning.”

There’s a sudden blob of brown in his face, and then a thumb pushing into his mouth. He goes to suck, but she’s grabbing the side of his cheek and pulling up, and he scrambles to his feet just to ease the pressure.

Trying to make out her face through blurry eyes is a lost cause, but her chuckle is menacing enough. “Maybe by dinner,” she amends. “You’ve all had your fill of him, right?” she adds as she starts to drag him away.

If the Grandmaster still wants him here, that sort of imperious talk could get the speaker killed. But the Grandmaster’s laugh is… tickled, as though he likes her audacity. “Sure, wear him out the rest of the way,” he calls. “Don’t hold back on my account!”

His escort—captor? temporary owner?—doesn’t release his cheek from her grip as they stride down the hallway, past various doors and through different temperatures of air. The squirming discomfort is crawling across every square inch of skin that isn’t his cheek, and it takes up so much of his awareness that it’s a while before he realizes that he’s naked.

No one they pass seems to care, even though the uncomfortable crinkling of his skin says that more than half of it is still covered in drying seed. And knowing the Grandmaster’s ‘treats’ as well as he does, he’s probably half hard, even though he can’t really feel it.

Back on Asgard, he would have been mortified to be so exposed. On Sakaar, though, clinging to his pride is worse than pointless; he had that drummed into him on the first week. There’s no room for restraint or modesty, not here.

His bleary eyes still haven’t cleared up by the time they stop, and he’s still having trouble focusing on anything but the discomfort. As the door shuts behind them, he blinks a few times, squinting to make out what appears to be a small bed. Much smaller than the ones he’s used to, these days.

Still, his role here is pretty obvious. When she lets go of his cheek, he stumbles over to the bed and kneels by the foot. It’s… not high enough to make the position easy, but he can adjust once she’s got her legs around his head. He’s nothing if not flexible.

“Just get in the bed,” she says, irritated.

Irritation is not a good sign, and he’s not clear-headed enough to figure out how to appease her; all he can do is scramble onto the bed and take the best position he can think of, on his back with his knees bent in case she wants to lie on him.

“Under the covers,” she says flatly, and he doesn’t hesitate to obey. No oral, then—she wants to get straight to the penetration. He slips a hand down to feel himself, hoping she doesn’t punish him for the attempt; he is, as expected, half hard, and it won’t take much to get him ready for her.

The sound of fabric—she’s disrobing, and he takes deep breaths, not knowing how much she might delight in closing off his airways. But then she slides in under the covers, and pushes on his shoulder, directing him to turn away from her.

He closes his eyes, suppressing a shudder; he knows this one, too. Sakaar has taught him countless variations on the basic acts, and this is hardly one of his favorites. At least with a real cock, you’ve got some idea of whether you’re doing harm. But he’s probably still loose enough, and he’s had plenty of experience getting pegged, so—

Surprisingly, the woman just slides up close behind him and wraps her arms around his, one arm sliding under his neck and pulling him closer to her body. No cock, real or fake; no tentacles; no kissing or biting or feeling him up. No additional movement—she might as well be settling in to sleep. He’s not even there to warm her: Her skin is warmer than his, which is hardly surprising.

It’s all very confusing, as he can’t think what she’s getting from this.

“Relax,” she murmurs against his neck. “I don’t want anything from you. Just sleep, okay? That’s all.”

Oh. He almost thinks to protest, but he’s reminded that his preferences don’t matter. They matter even less than they ever did on Asgard. If she wants to have him while he sleeps, that’s her right; the Grandmaster has given him to her, and didn’t mention any limitations.

At least it’s slightly less vulnerable than being drugged. And he’s feeling a little less like his skin wants to wriggle off and leave him.

A year ago—even a couple of months ago—if he’d known that someone was planning to fuck him while he slept, he would have lain in wait for them and given them a lifelong lesson in underestimating the second prince of Asgard. Now, though, he can’t even summon up the energy to stay awake; he can feel sleep at the edges of his consciousness, ready to claim him, to make him ready for whatever kinks she might indulge in with his body.

“Feeling better?” she asks, just as he’s drifting off, and he surfaces again.

“Pardon?” His voice is still sticky, creaky, his throat still sore.

“Lyria’s what he gives you when he thinks you’re being unsociable. It’s pretty rough, the first time. If I hadn’t claimed you, you’d be clawing off your own skin until you figured out the trick.”

He swallows. “Trick?” he asks, feeling a little stupid that he can’t seem to string words together anymore. Whatever happened to his silver tongue?

“Skin contact,” she clarifies, and squeezes him a little tighter. “You’re going to be craving it for _hours_.”

And the _real_ trick is suddenly apparent: How to get skin contact at an orgy? Through sex. The first time someone fucked him, he’d feel better, and it wouldn’t take long for him to form the association; he’d spend the whole night clinging to anyone who would have him, desperately seeking the wrong cure.

But she saved him from that fate. And now he knows to watch out for these sensations the next time he accepts a drink from the Grandmaster’s hand—and to be a bit more tactile in the Grandmaster’s sight. It’s all a delicate balancing act, trying to appease the man while keeping his own will, his own _mind_.

Sakaar isn’t going to break him. He won’t let it.

Relaxing a little in her arms, he says “Thank you,” but it’s still hard to make the words come out clearly.

“Don’t mention it,” she replies. “Seriously. I don’t care for gratitude, and it wouldn’t be in your best interest to tell anyone else what happened in here. Got it?”

Rather than try to wrangle some words again, he nods.

“Good,” she says. “Now get some sleep. And I hope you don’t thrash about too much, because I _will_ kick you out of bed if you wake me up before morning.”

 _Well_ , he thinks, _that makes a fifty-fifty chance_. All depends on which flavor of nightmare decides to visit him tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Spoilery Content Warnings:** Loki feels that his long-term survival hinges on never refusing the Grandmaster's whims. This makes everything he does under that banner inherently Coercive (Non-Consensual). The Grandmaster could at any point kill him or make his life hell, so he's placating him; he's not in a position to truly consent.
> 
> This opening chapter has Loki 'wake up' from a drug haze to find that people are having sex with his body. (Technically, he was aware of this at the time; the drug's a bit more like a thing that kills short-term memory/attention, leaving you in a perpetual 'now' where you go along with anyone's suggestions.) He's somewhat distressed (mostly just sore and tired) but feels like trying to get out of the situation would be worse than putting up with it.
> 
> As the first drug is wearing off, a second drug is kicking in, which is designed to make him deeply uncomfortable if he's not in skin-to-skin contact with someone else.
> 
> The Valkyrie rescues him from the orgy (deliberately making the Grandmaster think that she's going to use Loki sexually) and drags him off to her apartment. She knows what the drug is and how to counter it, and intends to sleep skin to skin so that he avoids the worst of the effects. However, Loki assumes that she brought him there for sex (and further assumes that he's to be the bottom), and dreams up several scenarios that never happen.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Ugh, I am not getting these things written as quickly as I would like (either by day or by hour), but I'm doing my best. Two or three more days to go before the Twelve Days of Christmas are over! Then we're back to our regularly scheduled programming =^.^=


	2. Underskin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“How many layers must I peel away? How much do you truly want to know?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this fic, I'm doing a bit of a mixed FMI form: For the second and fourth chapters, one character shares Secrets while the other demonstrates Vulnerability (or is Accepted). There's a bit of secrets both ways even in this chapter, but mostly the focus is on Loki's secrets and the Valkyrie's vulnerability.
> 
> In case the timeline isn't clear: The opening takes place on the Statesman before they run into Thanos, which means that Loki is not yet damaged (as he is in the sequel) and has not yet started to develop a friendship with the Hulk. The bulk of the chapter takes places during Loki's time on Sakaar, before Thor shows up, so as far as Loki knows, Thor has been whisked off to Asgard to his doom and the whole planet's died along with him. So it's only "Unreliable Narrator" in terms of Loki not knowing accurate data about what's going on; he's lost everything that ever mattered to him.
> 
> See End Note for chapter-specific content warnings. Let me know if I missed anything.

“Banner chided me about the booze again. I swear, for a man who claims he’s no healer, he sure gets uptight about my health,” the Valkyrie says as they sink down into the pile of blankets in their new hiding place—a literal hole in the wall, tucked away in a maze of engine parts and maintenance ducts.

Since the Valkyrie’s basically their sole mechanic, they’re unlikely to be disturbed; no one else would bother to visit the lower decks. Even so, Loki appreciates the feeling of being all but hidden from the world. Away from prying eyes and judging looks and insults that get muttered just on the edge of hearing (forgetting, or perhaps not, that Loki’s hearing has always been a bit sharper than that of the typical Aesir). Here in the bowels of the ship, it’s surprisingly quiet.

“I’m not even drinking half as much as I used to,” the Valkyrie grouses, waving the bottle around before handing it over. “Got out of the garbage dump, got to stick my blade through a few hundred half-living corpses, feel the rush of battle again… spat in the eye of that wretched hag and watched her burn. Life is good, y’know? Or… better, at least.”

Loki hands the bottle back again, knowing that she’ll still go through three times as much as he does. It’s intoxicating, though, just getting to spend time with her. To be with someone who _knows_ him, and would actually care if he died. Who would mourn _Loki_ , not some phantom ideal brother who never even existed except in the self-indulgent fancies of Thor’s mind.

“You know that weird expression he makes, right?”

“Vaguely horrified, one eye wider than the other?”

“That’s the one. And he lowers his voice, like it’s some shameful secret, and he’s like, ‘I know you’re _intimate_ with Loki,’ and I just about laughed my head off, because he’s such a _mortal_ , you know? He honestly thinks he’s referring to the _sex_.”

“Doesn’t have a clue, does he?” Loki says with a soft grin, lounging back against the curved wall. “Wonder what he’d think about the first time I let you see me naked?”

“What, the orgy?” she returns, but her eyes twinkle when he sticks out his tongue at her, and she tugs him closer, to her side of the nest, and wraps her arm around his neck.

“Show me again,” she whispers in his ear, and he meets her gaze as the color in his skin drains away, revealing the blue, the lines. Bright scarlet eyes, heavy-lidded.

She kisses him on the cheek. “ _There_ he is. The guy only I get to see.”

* * *

* * *

* * *

Scrapper 142—who brushes off the request for any more accurate name—drinks the way Loki wishes he could let himself drink, as though draining an ocean of spirits could somehow calm the maelstrom of his soul. A couple of times, he ends up dragging her back to her apartment, and once he sticks around long enough to clean up her vomit before he lets her sleep it off.

It starts to feel like she’s challenging him to judge her for it. Or she’s wondering why he hasn’t tried to talk her into leading a healthier lifestyle.

Loki, however, feels _supremely_ unqualified to tell her how to live her life.

Over the past decade, he’s managed to cripple Jotunheim, fall prey to the Chitauri, surrender to Thanos, invade Midgard. When his mother needed him most, he’d been locked away beneath Asgard over the aftermath of his own worst decisions, including his impudent pride. When he’d brought Odin to an early end, he’d not only unleashed the Goddess of Death but, in a moment of uncharacteristic panic, sent that doom directly to Asgard—and Thor with it.

Worse, that doom would never have reached Asgard if Loki hadn’t opened the gates _four years ago_.

> _If your return threatens the safety of Asgard, Bifrost will remain closed to you, and you’ll be left to die_.

The past few weeks, those words have haunted him—Heimdall’s declaration on that first fateful day, when they’d threatened the safety of Asgard simply by going to Jotunheim in the first place. But no, the all-seeing gatekeeper saw fit to let them pass, ignoring the thousand-year travel ban because he, like Thor, saw the Jotnar’s presence in the vault as an affront that must not be left unchallenged. Even if that meant going behind the back of the Allfather himself.

There are _reasons_ that Loki couldn’t trust Heimdall enough to leave him in position while Loki held down the throne. Certainly didn’t work too well on the _first_ occasion, when Loki had been the legitimate ruler of Asgard, not desperately holding down an illusion that he didn’t want in the first place yet couldn’t see his way around. Easier to send Heimdall away to a post from which he couldn’t easily interfere.

(Of course, Loki would be lying if he didn’t admit to a little petty revenge as well.)

But if Heimdall had still been guarding the Bifrost, Asgard would not have been defenseless. And despite what others might think of him, Loki has ever been loyal to Asgard—even after finding that he didn’t quite belong. Loyal, not to the throne, nor even to the people, but to the Realm and all its glorious promise, its role in defending the Nine.

And now he’s landed here, in a sexed-up garbage dump, the exact opposite of Asgard on the surface and yet so, so similar underneath. An imperious madman on the throne, who revels in the veneer of splendor just as Odin did, and for whom Loki is once again bartering his self-respect in a vain attempt to show himself worthy of praise. Because he can see no other path that offers the least shred of hope for a future that’s worth all this struggling.

Even after losing everything, he’s just not ready to curl up and die.

Not yet.

So he may not know what’s buried in the Scrapper’s past, but he understands her all too well, and he’s the _last_ person to be criticizing the choices of others.

Still, the Scrapper’s other vice is a little harder to overlook: Her outings tend to conclude with the introduction of new arrivals for the Grandmaster to toy with.

Anything that gets the Grandmaster’s attention off Loki for a moment has been a relief, so he hadn’t noticed the connection right away. Then, one morning, he’d been lounging at the Grandmaster’s feet, muzzy-headed and full of colors, when Topaz had announced the arrival of Scrapper 142 and her latest acquisitions.

The negotiation had taken place with the Scrapper’s customary lack of deference, a trait that seemed to irritate Topaz no end yet seemed equally to amuse the Grandmaster. Two minutes later, Topaz was herding the captives toward the arena and Scrapper 142 was waltzing off with enough credits to buy the high-shelf liquor for a month… or maybe a week, at the rate _she_ guzzles it.

A week’s booze in exchange for four lives. Even in his drug-addled haze, Loki could see that the newcomers wouldn’t last long; they’d be fodder to cheer the crowd before the _real_ games began.

As the Grandmaster pulled Loki up into his lap again, though, Loki almost envied them.

* * *

As Loki persists in not calling attention to her flaws, the Scrapper seems to relax around him, and to bring him to her apartment more often, slyly rescuing him from a few of the more troubling orgies. Avoiding the orgies altogether, of course, would lead to problems, but Loki is grateful for the reprieve, and for a plausible reason for the Grandmaster to forget him for a while.

They share drinks, and gossip, keeping the Scrapper up on palace news while giving Loki an outlet for the complaints he can’t voice anywhere else. And she’s someone he can laugh with without worrying about what she wants from him.

Or so he thinks.

Perhaps it’s his own fault that he let down his guard.

They’re both pretty drunk, the night they start kissing. Up till then, it’s been nothing more than friendship, but tonight their hands begin to wander, and soon they’re tasting blackberry cordial (exotic import from Midgard, not strong but flavorful and _very_ expensive) on each other’s lips.

It’s the Scrapper who pulls back first. “Wait. What all have you had to drink tonight?”

He blinks, closes his eyes, considers. “Quadlora. A few rounds of Hemmix. That, ah, that stuff that makes your hair feel all tingly.”

“So he hasn’t dosed you with anything?”

“Not since… two days? Two and a half. He’s been more hands-on lately and wants me there for all of it.”

She tilts her head with a quick moue. “All right. Ground rules: I’m not after romance. Nothing long-lasting or ‘meaningful’.”

“Fine by me,” he agrees, pushing away thoughts of how the most meaningful relationships he’s ever enjoyed were with a deceptive baby-thief, a egotistical warmonger with no sense of diplomacy or self-preservation, and a woman who, for all her virtues, had stood by and done nothing while her husband brought both sons to ruin in completely different ways.

The family whose secrets and lies destroyed Asgard.

As the Scrapper moves in again, Loki lets the memories run away like water down a drain; they don’t matter anymore, will never matter again, and he loses himself in the here and now, the pleasures of the flesh as their kisses get more fervent and her hands wander a little further—

—he jerks, and she pulls back again.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “Bit bruised.”

But when he goes for her lips, she steps out of range and looks him over, eyes narrowed. “Where?” she asks, flatly.

“Hips, thighs, upper arms… neck… he whipped me for twenty minutes before taking me, and choked me while he came.” When her frown only deepens, he shrugs. “I cleaned myself with magic before we even got here. Healing would take more time, and besides, the Grandmaster likes to see signs of his handiwork the next day.”

“ _I_ can’t see them,” she says. “The bruises.”

Blinking, he glances down at his arms. “You wouldn’t. It’s a glamour. But you’ve seen what he does to his pets, and you needn’t worry about hurting me; I can take whatever you—”

“Take it off.”

“Excuse me?”

Taking a step back, she crosses her arms. “The glamour. Drop it.”

“What?” he asks, startled. “Why? Don’t tell me you—”

“Look, if you want sex—if that’s where this is going—then I get to see the _real_ you. No tricks, no disguises. No hiding.”

The anger smolders up inside him before the fear can take hold, and he glares at her. “Why make such a big deal of this? The bruises are temporary; this is what I _am_.”

“That’s you under a dress uniform. I want you rough and raw and _real_. Besides, you’ve seen me at my worst, haven’t you? Didn’t drive _you_ away.”

His eyes narrow. “I hardly think that revealing a few of your secrets gives you any right to interrogate me about _mine_.”

“Oh, you haven’t gotten _near_ my secrets,” she returns. “And if you don’t want to share, that’s fine; we just won’t have sex.”

“ _Why?_ ” he protests, but it comes out almost as a whine. “Do you _want_ to see how hurt I am? Does that turn you on?” He stalks in toward her, but she turns away. “I could be anyone you wanted,” he presses, his breath coming a bit faster. “The Grandmaster himself, if you’d like the chance to hurt him, to fuck him. Or Topaz. I could turn myself into any sort of creature, any beast—”

Moving to her collection, she picks out a fresh bottle, clear with a hint of green. “I don’t care to fuck a magical hologram.”

“Do you have a problem with my _seidhr?_ ” he asks incredulously.

Turning back, she leans against the wall and regards him, sucking in her cheeks. “I’m sick of masks,” she admits, finally. “Sakaar is nothing _but_ masks. We’re all playing our parts here, doing whatever we need to survive, and you can’t take anyone at their word. People pretend all sorts of things just to get what they want, what they _need_.”

He opens his mouth to protest, but she waves it away. “That’s not—I’m not _judging_ them for that, I’m doing the same thing, just… not here. This is the one place I can be _real_. The Grandmaster never shows up on the lower levels, so I don’t have to play to his pleasure; down here is the one place I can know what I’m agreeing to, and I have the chance to say no without any consequences. I’m not giving that up.

“You’ve got the same right, so… your choice. Door’s right there.”

Scowling, Loki turns on his heel and stalks out of the apartment.

* * *

Nine days later, she’s back from another trip, and Loki shows up in the evening with a box full of bottles; she grins and downs one before she’s even gotten them put away.

When she turns to regard him again, he’s standing in the doorway, as stiff as she’s ever seen him, chin high, the barest tremble running down his arms.

“Well?” she asks.

“How far?” he returns.

She tilts her head. “Come again?”

“How many layers must I peel away? How much do you truly want to know about what I am?”

Motioning for him to enter, she wanders over to choose a new bottle, then flings herself across the couch with the purple cushions. “Feels like you got a story just waiting to come out. So spill.”

“And if I refuse?”

She shrugs. “Then we go back to hanging out and sharing drinks. I won’t hold it against you; there’s plenty of stuff that I don’t care to share with anyone, either. But if you want to take this any further, well…” She takes a good swig and settles back into the cushions. “Besides, maybe it’ll feel good to get that weight off your chest, hmm?”

“None of this can reach the Grandmaster. Not a word.”

“Look, either I betray you or I don’t. It’s up to you how much you trust me.”

Grimacing, he looks away. “In my experience, trust has been a liability more often than an asset. And this is one of the few things I’ve managed to hide from him.”

“No one’s forcing you. We could just cuddle up and trade gossip like usual; I wouldn’t mind.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he pulls out the closest thing in her room to a chair, and positions it across from her, bringing their eyes to the same height. It’s a long, tense moment before he can steel himself to begin.

“My whole life has been lived in this form,” he says, “but it is not the form I was born to. For a thousand years, I did not know any different, and I was happier for the ignorance. When Odin told me—”

“Odin?” the Scrapper asks, bottle halfway to her lips.

He takes another deep breath; it’s still quite fresh, that unexpected loss. “I was raised as the son of Odin—”

The Scrapper chokes on her drink.

* * *

“I didn’t mean to… I never expected it to kill him. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Mortals are fragile,” the Scrapper observes with a shrug. “Doesn’t seem like you’d quite realized that he was one of them at the time.”

“No. I hadn’t.”

* * *

“You can feel it through the glamour, if you like.”

“It’s just a big scar?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t fix it on my own. Aches whenever there’s static in the air, but I’ve never been sure if that’s actual pain or just an aversion to being near Thor.”

“Ha.”

* * *

“So Hela—the _Goddess_ of _Death_ —is your _sister_.”

“Apparently. She might be the only family I have left.”

“…Pass me a few more bottles, yeah?”

* * *

“Okay, okay, stop.” The Scrapper takes a deep breath and glances out the window at a sky long gone dark. “This story has been fascinating to the point of being all but unbelievable, but I can’t help but notice that you’ve talked circles around anything involving what you actually are.” She meets his gaze. “Is it really that bad?” Her brows go up. “Are you like a zombie or something? A fire demon? A particularly well-disguised android?”

He’s been picking at his hands for so long that he’s drawn blood; he forces himself to separate them, and clenches them on his knees. “If I show you… there’s no undoing that.”

“Norns, Lo, if it’s all that bad, I could just drink the memory away.”

“You don’t seem capable of doing that.”

Her grin slips. “No. Wish I could. All it does is help me ignore the truth, for a while.”

That impulse is one he knows all too well. “If you regret it… I can’t erase your memory, but I could suppress it for you. I’m not sure how long the effect would last.”

“Nah. And c’mon, realistically, I still think you’re overplaying it. Whatever you got lying under that skin, you can’t tell me it’s weirder than, oh, Lem… Hurctarian… was that a Stygian last month, with all the tentacles, or was it an A’askavariian?”

“I’d been trying to repress that memory, thank you so _very_ much.”

“Oh! Or a Stark. Under all that armor, they’re really quite hideous,” she says cheerfully, wrinkling her nose. “But a demon in the sack. Ingenious as a mechanic, if you can stand the smell and do all the basic math for ’em. Can’t hold their drinks for _shhhit_.”

(If Loki spends the next six or seven minutes giggling uncontrollably, well, the Scrapper is laughing even harder, just not over the same things.)

“Point is,” the Scrapper manages, wiping her eyes after they’ve brought themselves back to some semblance of relative composure, “the universe is full of variety. And I’ve seen it all, or as much as lands on Sakaar, and I’ve slept with the kind of oddities that would’ve made my mother _scream_. So you know I’m adventurous and not easily spooked. Still think you’re gonna drive me away?”

Loki drops his head into his hands. “Logically?” he murmurs. “You’ll probably find it easier to take than I did. It’s not pulling out the rug under your entire sense of self. But… as much as I don’t want you to push me away… I also don’t want you to treat it like it’s nothing.” He meets her eyes. “It’s not nothing. For me, it was _everything_.”

“All right,” she says, with a quick tilt of her head. “So show me what’s worth all this angst.”

“That’s the other thing,” he says, forcing himself to stop picking at the scab where the wound’s already closed. “As far as I know, there are only two ways to temporarily disrupt whatever Odin did to me. One is to be touched by”—he doesn’t want to say _my own kind_ , doesn’t even want to _think_ it—“by others… like me. And the other… I daren’t bring it out, not here. It’s an item of power that would _decidedly_ catch the Grandmaster’s attention.”

“So what, you gonna draw me a picture?”

“Well… I can’t show you directly, either by illusion or shapeshifting, because I never studied that form long enough to mimic it. At most, I could show you the little bits I could see of myself.” He finds himself staring at his left hand again, and clenches it. “My arms, mostly. Or I, ah, I could put my own memories directly into your mind, and you’d feel what that was like for me.”

At her grimace, he sighs. “I know you want to see below the glamour, but… the easiest way for me to show you is to use a _different_ glamour. What I would look like, if not for Odin… I could cloak myself in that.”

“You can’t make an illusion of it, but you can make a glamour?”

“Glamours are mostly about _impressions_ ; there’s a certain amount of, ah, fudging that slips by if you don’t focus too much on the details. It works more by feel… what it _felt like_ to be Jotun, even if I never saw myself directly.”

Head tilted, she regards him curiously. “So you’re a frost giant.”

There’s no judgment to her words, but he swallows nervously; the secret’s out.

“I’ve fucked a few giants,” she says casually. “Not usually the other way around. Used to fight ’em, too. You… don’t exactly look like a giant. That part of Odin’s handiwork?”

“Perhaps. I’ll never know for certain. When he found me, I was… ‘small, for a giant’s offspring,’ or so he claimed.” He sighs. “Perchance that’s why I was abandoned.”

“So you’ve no more reason to cling to the past than I have… except that it won’t let you go.”

“No,” he says, as the room gets blurry. “I’ve nothing left to cling to.”

“Just treading water until it pulls you under?”

There’s a painful truth beneath the casual turn of phrase.

Loki shakes his head. “No… treading water until I see which way the tide goes.” He shoots her a pale grin. “I’m a shapeshifter, remember? Puffin or dolphin or marten—whichever form offers the most benefit, that’s what I’ll become.”

For a long moment, she studies him, eyes narrowed and lips drawn up in a moue. Finally, her face smooths, and she leans forward, elbows on knees. “And yet, Shapeshifter, there’s one shape that you’re still running from.”

He drops his gaze and swallows again. “I’ll show you as much as I can. I… I hope that’s good enough.”

“As long as I can see the truth, that’s good enough for me.”

Nodding, Loki closes his eyes. With a breath, he lets the fear and humiliation and self-disgust flow away, and feels the ripple of magic cross his skin as he reveals, for the first time to anyone he cares about, the truth that he’s tried so long to forget.

There’s no gasp, no shriek, no attack, but then, he hadn’t really expected any of those. Not from her. Really, he hadn’t been sure _what_ to expect.

He feels her get up, slowly, and draw near, circle quietly around him. It’s almost a deeper vulnerability, letting her get behind him while he’s like this, giving her the chance to do anything at all while all his defenses are down. But he stays still and silent, and lets her look her fill.

“Can I touch it?” she asks softly, her breath against his ear, and he’s not sure whether she’s asking permission or wondering if a touch will break the glamour, but either way, he nods.

As her fingers brush across what must be his heritage lines, he wonders what it might feel like to have someone do that when they’re really there. Are they sensitive? He never cared to test the capabilities of his natural form, not least of all because it would hurt anyone who touched him. But she explores his body, including the invisible wound where the sword went right through him on Svartalfheim. The wound he’d expected to die from.

Neither her touch nor her breath betrays any hint of disgust—or pity, which he’d likely find harder to take. Only when the Scrapper plants a kiss on his temple does he startle, the glamour slipping away.

“Sorry,” she says, smiling down at him. “How do you feel?”

He licks his lips. “Naked,” he whispers, and she catches his lips with hers, just once, before she pulls him to his feet and brings them back to the sofa.

* * *

“So this is you,” she murmurs, trailing her fingers over the glamour he’s reclaimed at her request. “Or what you would have been, if Odin hadn’t stolen you away.”

“What I would have been is _dead_ ,” he counters. “Odin may have been a deplorable father, but at least he only tried to kill me once I had done enough to merit such a fate.”

“That’s… something,” she says, reaching for a fresh bottle. “You know, not that it matters now, but you could hope that the Bifrost attack took care of that old stormfart.”

“Oh,” he says with a dark chuckle, “ _him_ , I slew by my own hand. In Odin’s chambers, with Odin still abed.” He sighs. “As if becoming a patricide would somehow make him value me. I think by that point I must have been quite mad.”

They sit in silence for a while. Then she looks up at him. “How long did you spend on Jotunheim, anyway?”

“Mmm… a few hours, perhaps; why?”

“How did you find him so fast? After a thousand years?”

“Wasn’t that hard,” Loki drawls. “I mean, he was right there sitting on their giant ice throne.”

The Scrapper chokes on her drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warnings:** Lots of alcohol, including both parties being drunk when the groping begins (though still sober enough to discuss and negotiate, and I imagine it's less of a problem for Asgardians than for us poor mortals). Mention of vomit.
> 
> Strongly worded sexual negotiation in general, including (as with previous chapter) frank wording about sex acts, and it's not just in Loki's head this time; also, a little mild swearing that's not specifically talking about sex acts. Implied offer of shapeshifted bestiality.
> 
> Mention of non-con with (non-con) BDSM elements, including lasting bruises. Major scar. Mild self-harm.
> 
> Slavery. Regrets. Oblique mention of depression and suicidal ideation. Discussion of memory tampering.
> 
> * * *
> 
> I'm not sure how well it comes across, but the Valkyrie doesn't figure out that Loki is Laufey's son until that final line ^_^
> 
> Also, I couldn't figure out any natural way to weave it in (even in the opening), but in my head, sharing his secret left Loki so vulnerable that he didn't feel like sex anymore, so it wasn't until a later session that they finally got together to start the "friends with benefits" stage of their relationship. I'm not sure if I'll make that explicit in a later chapter or not.


End file.
